


Basil & Honey

by synfy



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Bees, Domestic, Dungeons & Dragons References, Fake/Pretend Relationship, Fluff, Gardener Castiel (Supernatural), Gardener Dean Winchester, Light Angst, M/M, Quote: Dude. On my car. He showed up naked covered in bees. (Supernatural), Rivals to Friends to Lovers, Slow Burn
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-01-31
Updated: 2021-02-11
Packaged: 2021-03-17 08:13:53
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 8,145
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29097093
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/synfy/pseuds/synfy
Summary: Dean's really pleased his little basil plant in his apartment building's community garden. Sure, he got it from Lowes and didn't grow it from seed or whatever, but he's never had the time or ability to grow things before moving here, and he's damn proud that he's kept the thing alive.Castiel has been gardening since middle school, when he learned how you can plant you own pollinator garden to attract his favourite insect ever: bees. He's got a flourishing, if a little small, flower patch in his apartment building's communal garden, which is a relaxing way for him to unwind after dealing with his brothers. Specifically Gabriel. But one of his neighbours has aterriblyneglected basil plant, thatclearlyhasn't been pruned inmonths. It's driving him a little bit nuts.
Relationships: Castiel/Dean Winchester
Comments: 7
Kudos: 50





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [sqacey](https://archiveofourown.org/users/sqacey/gifts).

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is 50% fueled by me going on an indignant rant at 10pm in my school's community garden over the state of the basil plant in there while my partner just stands there like why are you like this, 40% fueled by my partner and I agreeing that Cas should have been allowed to keep the bee thing he had in season 8, and 10% fueled by my partner's absolutely correct assertion that Sam Winchester had no damn buisness being at Stanford and should have gone to a liberal arts school.

Dean slammed the door of his apartment and let out the pent-up groan in his chest. He was about 5 hours past being desensitized to the smell of grease and cheap beer, but he could still feel it like a film on his skin. Hell, he could see the sheen of it on his forearms. Or maybe that was just sweat. Either way, he toed off his boots and headed towards his bathroom to wash it off.

He didn’t bother to close his bathroom door before turning the shower on, setting it to comfortably hot, and beginning to peel off his work clothes. His jeans and boxers joined his black Henley on the floor, and he glared at them for a moment before stepping into the shower. He’d need to get his apron from the car tomorrow, too. He’d brought it home to give it a good wash before his next shift, but he’d left in a box on his front seat because he simply hadn’t felt carrying it upstairs. He was fucking tired.

He liked his job, he really did. The Roadhouse was a sports bar, with that casual-yet-hypermasculine atmosphere that reminded Dean of how his dad had been, and it was owned and run by Ellen, who was as close to Dean’s mom as anyone could be. He’d known most of the employees for years, and since Ellen had made him practically her right hand guy since Jo had started college, he had a lot of freedom to pick who he worked his shifts with. Plus, as a manager, he got to do a little bit of everything depending on where he was needed, which he liked. He liked his co-workers, he liked cooking and bar tending, he rarely had to do the shit he didn’t enjoy, like hosting, so he really had very little to complain about. _But._ The customers could be an absolute _nightmare._

Dean rinsed the soap off himself and ran a hand over his face. Nah, he decided, he didn’t need to shave today. He could do that tomorrow.

Ellen had been giving him the opening shifts during the week lately, probably her way of telling him that he should get a social life. The opening shift was generally quieter, with their largest events usually just being groups of buisness men who wanted to seem “cool” in front of their associates when they went out to lunch, or the occasional group of teenagers who just wanted fried food and to mess with the pool tables after school. But, every now and then, they’d get the dreaded day-drinker. Which was exactly what Dean had just gotten to deal with.

Dean shut the shower off and stuck his arm out from behind the curtain to blindly grope for his towel. He grabbed it and yanked it inside the shower to begin drying himself off before he exposed himself to the cold air outside. There was a little muffled thump from somewhere beyond the curtain.

“Hey, Missy.” Dean rubbed the water out of his hair, then wrapped the towel around his waist and got out.

Missy was perched on the counter, looking at him with confused green eyes. When he bent to grab his discarded clothes, she jumped off the counter and arched her back in greeting.

“Yeah, yeah, I know. I was gone almost all day. I’m sure you missed me terribly while you napped on my bed.” Dean told the grey tabby cat, reaching out to scratch under her chin. She meowed in confirmation and then walked out of the bathroom, tail held high. Dean sighed fondly and followed her into his bedroom to get dressed.

He tossed his work clothes into a nearly full hamper and pulled some clean clothes out of his dresser. It was six pm, so he still had a couple hours of daylight left if he wanted to go somewhere, but he really didn’t feel like leaving his building any more today, so he just grabbed some sweatpants and a loose shirt.

Missy jumped up on his bed and meowed at him a few more times as he got dressed.

“Mhmm. Sounds like you had a very exciting day of loafing around and being a tiny freeloader.” Dean said, nodding. He lived alone so he could talk to his cat if he wanted. “Meanwhile I had to deal with the infamous Gordon Walker, again.”

He headed towards his kitchen, somewhat relaxed and ready to get food now. He could have eaten at the Roadhouse, but he wasn’t twenty any more and eating too much greasy bar food during the week had actual consequences now. Missy followed him and jumped up on the counter above the dishwasher. Dean scooped her up with one arm and deposited her back on the floor, to her protests.

“Gordon needs to find another bar to go to. Or hell, I don’t give a shit.” He mumbled, half to the cat and half to himself as he opened the fridge. Gordon was something of a regular. He tended to show up unpredictably, usually made an appearance handful of times throughout the month at random times of the day, and would sit and drink steadily by himself until closing. And he was a mean drunk.

D ean reached an arm into the back of his disappointingly empty fridge and pulled out a plastic container of broccoli. He eyed it with disappointment and tossed it on the counter. 

Fortunately, thanks to  Gordon’s habit, he had an impressive tolerance and it took him a good long while of nursing his beers to get drunk. Unfortunately, he had ample time to get there on the days he showed up just after opening. Like he’d already done twice this month. Last week, Dean had been forced to kick him out after he’d nearly gotten into a brawl when Ash had tried to cut him off. 

“Do you know what shit Gordon tried to pull today?” Dean complained to his cat, shutting the fridge door and going for the pantry. Missy wound herself around his feet, clearly hoping he was going to the pantry to get food for her even though it was not that time of day. He grabbed the first box of pasta he saw and tossed it on the counter, then shut the pantry door before his cat could stick her head inside. 

“Today, Gordon came in at _noon._ Right when we open! I swear, the fucker was probably waiting outside for a few minutes. No one else had even gotten there yet, it was just me and Gordon and the god damn fryers. Orders a beer, gets halfway through it before he starts complaining about his fight with Ash, saying nasty shit. Then the usual vampire crap, which I really think is just some weird misogynistic thing. I was stuck listening to him for twenty minutes before a little business meeting came in and I had an excuse to go take their orders. I’ve never been so happy to see a bunch of suits.” Dean looked at the pasta and the broccoli and tried to figure out what he was in the mood for. Italian, clearly, so he went ahead and got out his largest pot and began to fill it with water for the noodles. “And then Jo came in, and I wasn’t gonna make her deal with Gordon, so I gave her the group of suits and worked the kitchen so I could keep an eye on him. I don’t like the way he looks at her sometimes, y’know? It’s gross, and she’s practically my little sister. So I stayed a few minutes past the end of my shift to wait for Benny to show up to help with the dinner rush, cause I didn’t want to just leave her with the part-timers and Gordon.”

Dean glanced  at Missy, who was flopped on her side on the floor and blinked slowly up at him. “And I’m talking to my cat. Awesome.” 

Maybe Ellen was right and he needed to get out more. Then again, Ellen didn’t make Bobby, her best friend and Dean’s surrogate father, get out more. Well, actually she also told Bobby he needed to go out more, he just didn’t listen. Also, Bobby was married and lived with his husband Rufus, rather than alone with a cat like Dean. Hm. 

Dean shut the tap off and put the pot on the stove. After a moment’s more deliberation, he turned the burner on and got out a sauce pan. Alfredo sounded good to him. He got out some butter, a bag of shredded Italian cheese mix, and a little carton of cream he’d gotten for exactly this purpose  out of the fridge, and set about making the sauce. He’d learned a little while ago not to bother with a recipe for alfredo sauce. Mainly because the recipes he’d found on the internet seemed to want to get snobby and way overcomplicate what was, really, a rather simple sauce. 

Once he had everything started, Dean opened his freezer and pulled out an individually wrapped frozen chicken breast. He probably should have started on that first but, fuck it. He unwrapped it, dumped it onto a pan, added a bit of olive oil, and stuck it on a burner over low heat. It could just defrost and cook at the same time. They did that all the time with burgers at the Roadhouse, so clearly it’s fine. 

He turned back to his freezer and fished out another little bag that had gotten shoved into the wall next to the cheap whiskey and the slightly less cheap whiskey. There were only a few green leaves left in it and Dean frowned. Plenty for tonight’s dinner, but he’d need to get more soon. Maybe after dinner. 

He dumped the bag onto the cutting board and began to roughly chop the basil leaves before dumping them into the saucepan of gently heating cream and butter. 

His chicken had almost defrosted and Dean flipped it over in the pan to melt the last bits of ice. The big pot was about to come to a proper boil, so he shook a bit of salt in to get it rolling and dumped his pasta in, then set a timer. With everything going, he took the opportunity to peer out the window behind his  sink. 

He was up on the third floor, so he had a somewhat decent view of everything that went on down below. His apartment complex made a C-shape, and butted right up to a bit of forested area that included a dog park and a running trail, something his brother was excessively, upsettingly fond of. But inside the three walls made by his building, there was a little community garden.  He’d only ever seen about four people actually in the garden, if he included himself. 

He’d started growing a little basil plant that he’d gotten a couple months ago to use in his cooking. He’d gotten a little obsessed with the idea of a salsa garden after an exceptionally drunken conversation text conversation with Benny, his co-worker and high school best-friend-slash-bisexual-awakening, but had talked himself down to one plant to start. And then had gotten a bit overwhelmed in the Lowes Garden Center and perhaps had been talked into getting a  perennial basil plant by an enthusiastic teenager with green hair even though basil wasn’t usually in a salsa garden because he’d been anxious and she said that it was easy to grow.

And, you know? She’d been right. It was pretty easy for Dean, and he was damn proud of his basil plant. Even with the relatively minimal effort he put into it, the little thing had still at least doubled in size since he’d gotten it. Still nothing compared to the frankly ridiculous flowers that one of his neighbours was growing, but he was pleased with it. 

Unfortunately though, it looked like Flower Guy was currently in the garden,  talking to Kevin, the kid that Sam tutored . Dean could see the back of his head from his window where the guy was bent over a patch of something, doing whatever gardening work needed to be done to his massive and insultingly perfect flowers. Hopefully he’d be gone by the time Dean was done with dinner. 

His timer went off and Dean pulled the pasta off the stove to drain it. He flipped his chicken over a few times to make sure that it was cooked through, and stirred the cheese mix into the sauce pan, eyeballing it until the consistency felt right. He pulled the little pot of alfredo off the burner and set it on the counter under his spice cabinet as a reminder, then cranked the burner under his chicken up to high to begin browning the sides of it. 

He added the garlic and onion powder, pepper, and salt to his sauce, and let his chicken get as crispy as he dared without setting off his fire alarm. After a moment of consideration, he elected not to bother with any more dishes and simply dumped everything he’d collected into the big pot with the pasta. Noodles, chicken, sauce, and broccoli all mixed together. He filled a glass up with water,  grabbed a fork and knife, and headed for his couch and an episode of Dr. Sexy.  Missy got up from her spot in the middle of his kitchen floor and joined him on the couch, curling up against his thigh after a few half-hearted attempts to stick her face in his pasta. 

One episode turned into three episodes, and then it was almost nine at night and Dean was not going to make a night-time walk of shame down to the garden for basil. He’d just get that tomorrow, it was his day off anyway. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Also!! [Look at my partner's cute art of Cas with bees!](https://sqacey-draws.tumblr.com/post/641224258186592256/id-an-animated-drawing-of-castiel-from)


	2. Chapter 2

Castiel ran a hand through his hair and leaned against his kitchen sink. As if summoned, his cat appeared from somewhere in the depths of his couch and sprinted towards him, her tail sticking straight up in the air. As soon as they made eye contact, she began to meow loudly and insistently at him until he sighed and picked her up.

“Hi, Millie.” He let the tortoise shell cat settle against his chest, wincing slightly when her claws pricked him through the fabric of his button-down shirt. After a few moments of being held, she started to get squirmy, and he let her down with a little meow. She wandered off to do her own thing again, and Castiel took the opportunity to check his phone. It had been a slow day in the store which, while certainly not unpleasant, had left him a bit bored and full of energy. Sadly, that meant he’d turned to actually _reading_ Gabriel’s texts to him, which was always a mistake.

From: Gabriel  
  
**Yesterday** 2:04 AM  
**Gabriel:** Cassieeeeeee  
**Today** 8:45 AM  
**Castiel:** What.  
**Today** 1:26 PM  
**Gabriel:** Bro i need help  
**Gabriel:** its a rly srs decision  
**Gabriel:** what if i got a yacht  
**Gabriel:** like a small one! im thinkin like, 30-40 ft max?  


Gabriel  
  
**Gabriel:** i feel like kali would like that  
**Gabriel:** not that im still like pining abt her or n e thing but just like  
**Gabriel:** shed b rly jelly right???  
**Gabriel:** cassie cmon i can c u have read these  
**Gabriel:** ur my fav little bro  
**Gabriel:** actually ur just my fav bro  
**Gabriel:** and i kno fr a FACT i am ur fav bro 2  


Gabriel was a headache and a half. His on-and-off girlfriend, Kali, had broken up with him again a few months ago and he was starting to spiral. They usually didn’t stay broken up for more than a few weeks, but they’d broken their previous record for Longest Breakup about a month ago and Gabriel was very clearly starting to get worried about it. His impulse buys had gotten increasingly large price tags over the past three weeks, and he’d been texting Castiel about three times as often. It was annoying.

Still, he was right. As incredibly low as the bar was, Gabriel _was_ Castiel’s favourite brother by a large margin. His favourite relative, even. He was the only one of Castiel’s brothers who actually even had the ability to text him, since Castiel hadn’t bothered to give their two oldest siblings his number. Gabriel was a headache, but the rest of their family was simply a pain in the ass. Michael and Lucifer alone generated enough drama to fill at least five seasons of a soap opera. The rest of their regrettably large family could probably fill another ten seasons beyond that, if pushed.

Gabriel  
  
**Gabriel:** and i kno fr a FACT i am ur fav bro 2  
**Today** 5:05 PM  
**Castiel:** Gabriel, just because you possess the money to buy something does not mean that it’s a good idea. Just because you can, that doesn’t mean you should.  
**Gabriel:** but what if i ~want to~  
**Castiel:** Do you actually want to, or are you just bored?  


Gabriel  
  
**Gabriel:** but what if i ~want to~  
**Castiel:** Do you actually want to, or are you just bored?  
**Gabriel:** is there a difference  
**Castiel:** Do you actually want this boat or is this about Kali again?  
**Gabriel:** its a YACHT not a BOAT geez cassie get it right  
**Castiel:** You could talk to her, you know. There’s no rule saying you have to wait for her to reach out.  
Read at 5:14 PM  


In true Novak fashion, Gabriel was an expert at blatantly dodging all manner of actual feelings. Now, by the Novak family rules, Gabriel would need to wait a minimum of six hours before he could text Castiel again with a new topic, and Castiel would need to wait a minimum of three days before bringing Kali up again.

Conversation with Gabriel officially ended, Castiel switched to figuring out what he was going to do with the rest of his day. Meg was still out of town on a buisness trip, trying to talk to some locally owned grocery stores in the neighbouring county to see if they’d be interested in selling any of their honey in the store, so there was no chance that she’d be showing up unannounced to drag him anywhere, as she was prone to doing. He didn’t need to cook, thanks to the chicken casserole that one of their regulars had brought in a few days ago.

Meg insisted that Hannah only came in because she had a thing for him, but Castiel wasn’t sure he believed that. She struck him as just a genuinely kind person, and she certainly did seem interested in bees. She always had questions about bees, or beekeeping, or honey every time she came in, and she seemed to be fascinated by everything Castiel told her. It would be a little disheartening to learn that she didn’t actually care about bees at all, as Meg claimed.

Castiel glanced out his window. It wasn’t quite sunset yet, but it would certainly be getting there in a couple of hours. He wasn’t planning on having a late night, since he needed to go over to Meg’s before heading into the shop tomorrow to feed her pet turkeys, but he could feel the need to do _something_ to get his energy out. After barely a second of deliberation, Castiel went to find his gardening gloves. It was time to do some weeding.

He kept the gardening gloves that Gabriel had gotten him as a gag gift in the little hutch by his front door. They were bright pink and had hard plastic claws on four of the fingers, but they were actually quite effective for prying out weeds without getting dirt caked under his fingernails, so Castiel had kept them. He rolled the sleeves of his shirt up, put his keys back in his pocket, grabbed his pruning shears, and headed down to the community garden.

Kevin was down there, doing what appeared to be a worksheet on a lap desk in his usual chair, and Castiel felt himself let go of some tension. He didn’t say anything to Kevin, not wanting to disrupt the high schooler in case he was in the middle of a problem, and set about surveying his work for the day.

The community garden was a series of seven rectangular raised beds, a little above knee-height, surrounded with thick concrete walls so that you could sit on the edge while you worked, which Castiel thought was a surprisingly thoughtful design. Trying to be considerate of the other residents of the complex, Castiel had initially only taken up one corner of the easternmost rectangular plot, but his flower patch had slowly crept up to fill the entire plot through a combination of self-seeding and failure on the part of anyone else to claim the rest of the space. In fact, there were very few people who even used the other six plots.

Someone had made the regrettable decision to plant mint in the westernmost plot back when the garden plots had first appeared a couple years ago. So, that entire plot was now a monoculture of a single, sprawling plant. Likewise, strawberry had gotten planted two plots down from that, and had claimed another entire plot via runner clones. Castiel wasn’t really going to complain about that, though. He and Kevin had certainly enjoyed their fair share of mint and strawberries in their water over the years.

However, the other four plots were kind of the bane of Castiel’s gardening existence. Three were totally empty of intentional plants, and had filled completely with grass and weeds that self-seeded enthusiastically into Castiel’s plot, which meant that he needed to weed at least once a month in order to keep things neat. The fourth plot, directly next to Castiel’s was only half full of weeds. The other half was a patch of bare dirt covered by an oversized, shrubby, neglected Thai basil plant. Castiel wasn’t sure who it belonged to, but it had appeared there a few months ago and had pretty much gone feral since. Whoever had planted it clearly had no idea how to keep up with basil. They’d never pruned it, that Castiel could tell, so it had gone leggy and floppy early on. Then it had started flowering, and the flower spikes had never been cut, so it had just gotten even floppier. He just hoped it hadn’t started seeding.

Castiel set his pruning shears on the side of his plot and surveyed where most of the damage was. His perennials, mostly yarrow and coneflowers, were big enough to shade any space beneath them and didn’t have too much grass growing, but the shorter marigolds at the other end had little sprouts coming up all around them. Castiel sighed, grabbed the trash can that was kept out there for plant matter, and got to work.

After a few minutes of quiet coexistence, Kevin let out a long groan and got up to stretch.

“I feel like it should be illegal for them to assign us books and essays over the summer when everyone knows that less than half the class is going to do them. What’s the point of me doing this work if the teacher is just going to give up on the book after a week because no one has read it?”

Castiel glanced up at Kevin from his weeding. “At least you get to read an interesting book? You benefit from it even if your classmates don’t?”

Kevin rolled his eyes. “Sure, if I hadn’t already read Midsummer Night’s Dream twice over. I just feel like I’ve spent my whole summer doing school work, and this is just busy work.”

“What have you been up to this summer? I haven’t seen you as much.” Castiel said. Usually, Kevin sat in the garden a couple of times a week, to get some sunlight while he did homework, so naturally they’d run into each other on a relatively regular basis. They had a wonderful sort of friendship that mostly involved Castiel working silently on his garden and Kevin working silently on his homework, with occasional breaks to chat about flowers, or bees, or biology, or Kevin’s schoolwork.

“Oh, I was doing this program up at the college for Model UN, they had me staying in the dorms there. My mom made me sign up for it last year.” Kevin shrugged. “It was a lot of work, but it was really interesting.”

“Huh. Maybe if being the first Asian-American president doesn’t work out, you could do something in International Diplomacy.” Castiel glanced up at Kevin with a wry smile.

Kevin grinned back. “I’m considering it. But right now I think I have to focus on colleges first. This year is when I have the SAT, so I’ve got to really start studying for that. Pretty sure my mom’s already booked an appointment with my tutor for tomorrow night.”

Castiel yanked up the last grass shoot he could see and got up to move to the other side of the plot. “You’ve been preparing for that for as long as I’ve known you. I feel confident you’ll be able to handle the SATs.”

“Thanks. But it can’t hurt to be over-prepared.” Kevin sat back down and picked up his lap desk again.

Castiel dumped the last handful of grass shoots into the trash bin, and looked down at what was left in his plot. There was a crowd of new seedlings crowded under the marigolds, but not all of them looked like they should. “Huh.”

“What is it?” Kevin stood up again and came to look over his shoulder.

“See how these ones here have two long, skinny leaves?” He pointed to the ones he was talking about, then to the weird seedlings. “And these ones have short, very rounded leaves, with almost no stem to speak of?”

“Yeah. So neither are grass, but one of them isn’t from your flowers, I take it?”

Castiel nodded. “Exactly. These look like mint seeds, actually.”

“From the mint all the way at the other end? That’s a bit far.” Kevin frowned, and a horrible thought popped into Castiel’s mind.

“It is a bit far, even for mint.” He stood up and turned around, coming to face the floppy basil plant. “It isn’t too far, however, for this basil, which is a member of the mint family.”

Castiel generally tried not to swear in front of Kevin, or in general, but this was pushing it. This god damn plant. Was seeding into his plot. And right around his marigolds, so he couldn’t even weed the intruder seedlings out right away without risking the marigold seedlings.

Kevin reached out to grab one of the longer flower spikes, over a foot in length. “Why don’t you just, I dunno, cut the flowers for whoever’s plant this is? You said it would improve the flavour anyway, right? So you’d be doing them a favour.”

Castiel thought about it for a moment. Generally, he wanted to stay out of the way of other people’s gardening adventures, both to avoid insulting them, but also to avoid people giving the responsibility of taking care of their plants to him. He’d ended up the caretaker of enough tulips and carnations from his mother in high school to be keenly aware of how little he liked letting others pick his plants for him.

However, he also disliked that the neglect of this basil was becoming his problem because it was self seeding into his plot.

“You know what? I think I will.” As soon as he decided to do it, Castiel knew he wouldn’t feel right just cutting the flower spikes back. No, if he was going to prune a stranger’s basil for them, he’d do it right. Starting on the edge of plant closest to his plot, Castiel started methodically going through the branches. The ones that had been stripped of leaves by the plant’s owner (yet another thing that irked Castiel) were cut down to the leaf node just above the woody growth. The ones with big full leaves he only cut down to the node below the flower spike.

It took about twenty minutes to do, even with Kevin helping a bit, but the plant looked much better. He’d left a few of the shorter flower spikes, because he couldn’t resist leaving something for the bees, but the floppy foot-long flower spikes were gone. The plant was no longer leaning over under its own weight, and the places where he’d cut it down to the woody growth would be able to fork out and help it become bushier and thicker. A job well done, in his opinion.

It was starting to get dark by the time they finished, so Kevin had to head in for dinner, and Castiel decided to do the same. He did take a few of the basil cuttings for himself, though.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> literally do not care if kevin is a bit ooc, he is a high schooler and should be allowed to have complaints about classmates and parents making him do extracurriculars like a normal kid instead of having complaints about the winchester apocalypse round 3  
> also I do have reasons for the cat's names, y'all just gotta wait and see


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> it's been a hell of a time here y'all  
> anyway enjoy some extremely domestic fluffy shit w friends and the counterbalance of john winchester

“Hey, Handmaiden!” Charlie doesn’t even look up from her phone when Dean shoulders open the door to his apartment and dumps his grocery bags on the kitchen counter.

“Isn’t it illegal for our building to not have a working elevator? Isn’t that against some law?” Dean says, in lieu of a greeting.

“Since our beautiful building is three stories tall, it sure is!” Charlie slid sideways to lay down on Dean’s couch, blocking his view of the back of her head. “But I really don’t think Crowley cares.”

Dean started putting his groceries into his fridge, leaving out the stuff he’d need for dinner. “Yeah, our landlord seems to turn a blind eye to a lot of things. Like the rampant break-ins that have been happening on our floor.”

Charlie laughed. “Does it really count as breaking in if you’ve invited me over for later, anyway?”

“Well, given that I know I locked my door before I went shopping, I think it does.”

“Oh, you could stop me if you really wanted to. Also, you’re the one who taught me how to pick locks in the first place.” Charlie pointed out. 

Dean sighed dramatically and rolled his eyes, but he knew Charlie knew it was all for show. Charlie was his next door neighbor or, as she liked to put it, his universe-assigned best friend. Dean was pretty sure she’d made that up especially for him, since he knew for a fact that neither of them had any clue who their other next door neighbors were, but he didn’t deny that she was his best friend.

“So, what’s for dinner?” Charlie finally got up from his couch and wandered lazily into the kitchen to watch what he was doing. His cat followed her, the little traitor.

“Lasagna.” Dean said, setting a small plastic jar of dried basil down on the counter next to the sauce with an entirely reasonable amount of force.

Charlie blinked at him, then picked up Missy. “Right. And you’re mad about it? You know you can pick something else to cook.”

“No, I want to make lasagna, it’s something I like and it’s easy enough to make it vegetarian for Sammy and his silly diet.” Dean huffed and gestured at the bag of frozen fake ground beef crumbles. “I’m just pissed off because someone in our building has no fucking sense of respect, apparently.”

“Um. What am I missing here?”

Dean got out a pot and started on the lasagna noodles, letting himself be maybe a bit louder than necessary about the whole process. “Two fucking days ago, I went down to the garden to get some basil. You know, from the plant I have down there? The plant that is mine and not anyone else’s? And I find that some dick-wad has practically cut it down. It was getting so big, and some asshole went and took literally half the fucking branches. I don’t give a damn how much pesto they needed to make, they should have gotten their own fucking plant. Now I have to use dried basil. It’s like putting basil scented paper in my damn food.”

Charlie’s only reaction was to raise her eyebrows.

Dean bit back the urge to get mad at her. Charlie wasn’t judging him, he reminded himself. She was probably just surprised to find out he cared this much about the plant. Hell, he was a little surprised to find out that he cared this much.

“Sorry, I’m just- irritated. You know how I get when I have nothing else to think about. I get worked up.”

Charlie set Missy down and reached past him for the bag of fake beef crumbles. “Don’t worry about it, man. I know how you get about things you care about. Wanna shit-talk your brother’s hippy life choices ‘till he gets here?”

She wiggled the bag invitingly and Dean gave her a small, grateful smile. “Sure. Did you know I saw him with his hair in an honest-to-god _manbun_ last weekend?”

“Eww, where was he?”

Dean took the bag of “beef” from Charlie and got out a skillet to continue with the lasagna while they talked. Charlie moved to help him out without being asked.

“He was _jogging_. On the trail that runs through those woods past the garden? He was _jogging_ , with his hair in a _manbun_ , with his _dog_.” Dean shook his head mournfully.

“Alright, the dog I understand. I mean, Bones is an adorable dog, and I say this as someone who is firmly a cat person.” Charlie half-turned to blow a kiss at Missy. “Golden retrievers are some of the most approachable dogs, so he can totally use Bones to pick up chicks while he’s out jogging. And maybe the vegetarianism makes him seem sensitive, I don’t know what straight college girls are into. But I’m with you on the manbun.”

Dean rolled his eyes at his best friend’s blatant attempt to steal his cat. “He’s already at his hippy liberal arts school with his hippy liberal arts scholarship. He’s even got his hippy little house with his hippy furniture. Does he need the hippy hairstyle, too?”

“Bet he uses hippy shampoo.” Charlie smirked.

“Oh, and hippy conditioner. Bet he doesn’t even use the 2-in-1 like a real man.”

“2-in-1? Now that’s hippy shit. I use 40-in-1, only one bottle of soap, baby. Same shit for everything, I wash my hair and the floor with the same soap.” Charlie said, her face completely straight.

“Oh, you actually use soap? I just rub pine bark on my skin until I bleed.” Dean fought hard not to break a smile. 

“You actually shower? I just apply a fresh layer of Axe every day, like a real man.”

Dean and Charlie stared at each other for two seconds, completely serious, before cracking up.

“Alright, thanks. That was fun.” Dean put the lasagna in the oven and took a deep breath. “So, what’s up with you? Where’s your girlfriend these days?”

Charlie’s eyes lit up. “Dorothy’s up in Seattle right now, still working on unionizing Amazon workers. I  _may_ have sent her some files containing some incriminating information on a couple upper management shmucks.”

Dean let Charlie regale him with the stories of what the Amazon managers had done, deeds ranging from mild tax evasion to downright unsavory personal conduct. When she got to how she’d actually found out the information, Dean could only really follow for a little bit before the tech jargon put him out of his depth. He switched to passively listening, nodding and making appropriate noises while she talked, and thought about how the rest of the evening would be going.

They were still waiting for Sam and the Tran family to arrive for their bi-weekly dinner together. Sam had been tutoring a middle schooler when he’d still been attending the local high school. After getting accepted to the local college with a full ride, he’d decided to stay on as the kid’s tutor for high school.  Naturally, after Sam tutoring the son for that long, eventually they’d both become friends with the family. The Tran family actually were the ones to help Dean get his apartment by introducing him to their landlord, something which Dean appreciated greatly. Now, Sam, Dean, Charlie, and the Tran family had dinner together at Dean’s place every other week, and played D&D at Charlie’s place on off weeks. 

T here was a knock on the door right as the timer on the oven started beeping.

“Got it!” Charlie went to answer the door, letting Dean get the lasagna. “Oh, wow. Dean was right, you do have a manbun.”

“Wh- Hey! Dean’s been rocking the same haircut since high school, he doesn’t get to shit talk my hair.” Sam’s indignant tone was slightly muffled as he bent down to hug Charlie. 

D ean set the lasagna on the counter to cool and grinned as he watched Charlie reach behind Sam to muss Kevin’s hair. 

“Stop lingering in the doorway, you’re going to let bugs in.” Linda Tran’s voice came from somewhere behind Sam’s massive frame, and Dean grinned wider as he watched his whole cluster of friends shuffle their way into his apartment. 

S am walked around the counter and immediately focused in on the cooling pan on the stove. “Lasagna! Did you-”

“Make it without meat, even though that is a sin, to fit your silly hippy thing? Yes, because I’m that good of a brother.” Dean finished for him. 

Sam smiled, and the expression was so boyish that it made him look like an oversized puppy for a moment. “Thanks, Dean!”

Dean rolled his eyes and went to help Linda. “Why don’t you get drinks for us, Sammy?”

Linda handed off a smaller pan with some kind of vegetable casserole and a baguette roll to him. He brought them over to the counter next to the lasagna pan, and tried to dodge around Sam and Charlie as she got utensils out. His kitchen really wasn’t made for more than two people. 

After a minute of bumping elbows, Dean gave up and just put a stack of plates on the counter, the retreated to stand by his table with the Trans. They waited until Sam and Charlie were done setting the table then, by some miracle, managed to form a semi-orderly line and actually got food. 

Dean let out a sigh of relief when he finally got to sit down with his food. The lasagna looked good, despite the lack of meat, and Linda’s green bean casserole smelled like fried onions and heaven.  Gleefully, he dug in. 

“Dean, I dunno how you did it, but this tastes exactly the same.” Sam said, shoving a giant piece of lasagna in his mouth. 

“I made a deal with the devil.” Dean said with a wink. 

“You made a deal with our landlord?” Charlie fake gasped. 

Linda barked out a laugh. “Crowley might as well be the devil, for all  that I can tell. Man has no sense of heart when it comes to late payments.”

“Speaking of payments, how’s the new publishing company working out for you?” Charlie said, through a mouthful of bread. 

“Quite well, actually. You were right, they were a much better option for me. Fewer editors, bit heavier workload, but it’s a much better environment. More women, you know. The writers are the same as ever, a bit difficult to work with and perpetually behind their deadlines, but mostly fine. And they let me work from home.” Linda nodded, looking satisfied. “I don’t understand why you keep working at that call center if you could find me a good job like that. Surely you could go into something a bit better paying with the skills you have, Charlie? Or at least something a little less rank-and-file.”

“Oh, you know. I like the job I have. Being one of many in my workplace gives me certain benefits.” Charlie smirked. “Anyway, how’s school going for you two nerds?”

“Kevin’s got his SATs coming up this year and he’s going to absolutely crush them.” Sam said proudly, making his pupil duck his head. 

“I’ve got the math skills, I can identify all the grammatical structures they want, but I still am behind on the vocabulary. I’ve still got studying to do.” Kevin half muttered into his plate. 

“Right, and that’s why we’re working on Latin.” Sam triumphantly jabbed his fork at Dean. 

“You’re making the kid do what, now? Latin, really?” Dean snorted. “Sure you’re not just trying to inflict the childhood trauma of Dad’s Latin lessons on Kevin?”

Sam rolled his eyes. “Dean, Dad didn’t really know Latin, he just knew random shit from the Bible. And I’m not teaching Kevin conversational Latin or anything, not the stuff I’m learning in my own Latin class, I’m just teaching him the roots and stuff.”

“So you’re teaching him Bobby’s Ancient Greek shit too?”

“Language, Dean.” Linda chided. 

Dean ducked his head in apology as Sam nodded. “Yeah, the Greek and Latin roots that have made their way into our modern English are incredibly useful to know, especially for standardised tests. I don’t know which words Kevin is going to need to know, so I’m teaching him how to recognise the individual parts of the words so that he can figure it out for himself, on the fly.  It’s an approach that I think will benefit both of us, him on the SAT and me on the LSAT.”

Linda nodded and looked pleased. “I think it’s clever.”

Dean shook his head and smiled. “Well, far be it from me to stop the boy-genius party you’ve got going on.”

Sam waited until Linda took a bite, then stuck his tongue out at Dean.

“Anything new happening with you, Dean?” Kevin asked. 

Dean chased the last bit of lasagna around his plate with his fork and shrugged. “Nah, same old, same old for me. Most interesting thing to happen recently was just another standard bar fight with a mean drunk. Not exactly riveting, y’know.”

“Well, there is your whole basil plant drama.” Charlie gestured at him with her fork. “The one you ranted to me about for like five minutes straight?”

“Um, basil drama?” Kevin looked confused.

Dean sighed. “Yeah, it’s nothing, really. I’ve just got this basil plant in the garden downstairs, and it looks like someone messed with it. I’m just a bit upset about it, I guess.”

“Oh, I didn’t know you’d taken up gardening.” Sam looked delighted. 

Dean shrugged and set down his fork. “I haven’t really, it’s just one plant. I guess it’s been something I’d been thinking about, but I didn’t really want to try an actual garden until I was sure I could keep at least one plant alive.”

“Maybe the person who messed with your plant was just, um, trying to help?” Kevin said. 

Dean looked at the kid and frowned. The little alarm bells that started to ring whenever Sam tried to tell him a lie started to go off. “What do you mean? Do you know something, Kev?”

Kevin looked nervous for a moment, then let out a breath. “There’s this guy that I chat with sometimes, the one who has all the other plants in the garden. His name’s Castiel, he’s super nice and he knows a ton about gardening. He said that it would improve the plant or something if he cut it back, so he did. He didn’t know it was yours, I think he just thought it was abandoned or something.”

Dean started to say something, to get mad again, but Charlie caught his eye across the table and subtly shook her head. He took a deep breath. “Ah. Well, I guess I’ll just  let him know that it’s my basil and I haven’t abandoned it. I’ll talk to him, or something.”

Charlie gave him a meaningful nod. 

They finished eating relatively quickly and quietly after that, which Dean felt a little bad for. He didn’t want Kevin to think he was mad or something. 

After piling the dishes in the dishwasher and wrapping up the leftovers, the Trans departed and Charlie collapsed onto Dean’s couch once again, turning on the TV and getting ready to force Dean to watch another episode of Game of Thrones. Missy reappeared from Dean’s bedroom and joined Charlie. 

"Dean, can I talk to you for a second?" Sam said. He glanced significantly towards Charlie, then at Dean's bedroom door.

"Yeah." Dean jerked his head in understanding and they went into his bedroom. Sam closed the door behind him.

"I didn't want to bring it up and spoil dinner, but I got a letter from Dad." The words spilled out of Sam in a rush, and hit Dean like a sucker punch.

"He- what? How?" Dean's mind started going a mile a minute. They hadn't spoken to their dad since... Well. Since Sam announced that he'd been accepted to college and intended to go. Since the huge fight that had ensued. Since Dean had helped Sam pack his bags into the Impala and they'd all but run away.

"Don't freak out, I don't think he knows where either of us are yet." Sam held his hands up, as though he could physically stop the ball of _something_ threatening to choke Dean. "The letter came in my school mailbox, not the one at my house. My mailbox is on the school website, not that hard to find."

"What did he want?" Dean's voice sounded hoarse.

Sam glanced to the side quickly and laughed, his expression twisting. "Money. Same as always. Didn't even ask how I was doing. He said he's getting closer to finding Mom's killer but he needs funds."

Dean exhaled slowly. Getting closer to Mom's killer. He'd held on to a foolish hope that eventually, John would see what everyone else saw, and realise that the wiring in their decades-old childhood home had, in fact, just been old. That the fire that had claimed his Mom's life and had nearly claimed Sam's had really been an accident. The whole obsession with finding her supposed killer hadn't even come around until Sam was 4, and John had spent three and a half years amassing alcoholic tendencies.

"How much did he ask for?" Dean croaked.

Sam gave him a disbelieving look. "You're not seriously- no, dude. I'm telling you about his letter so that you know he's in town. He's not going to get a damn penny out of us. We don't owe him anything."

"He's our _dad_ , Sammy. He _raised_ us."

"Dean, he-" Sam shut his jaw with a click and inhaled sharply through his nose. "He dragged us over the continental US in a drunken goose chase for a killer that didn't exist for most of our lives. We didn't have anywhere to call home because of him. I know you remember what he was like before the fire that killed Mom, but I don't. He's never been a dad to me, I'm not sure he even knows my birthday. Whatever  he was like before the fire, that doesn't change the fact that he was never there. You were the one who made me soup when I got sick, you were the one who tucked me in a night, you were the one who talked me through high school break-ups, you were the one who tried and utterly failed at helping me with my homework."

Sam drew in a shaky breath and Dean couldn't tell if he was about to cry or punch a wall. "You raised both of us, Dean, and I love you for it, but you never should have had to. I know you've got memories of him that I don't have, and because of that you've got loyalty to him that I can't have, but please. He isn't worth your loyalty or your money. Just promise me- if you hear from him, talk to me first."

"I-" Dean's voice threatened to break and he swallowed. "Yeah. Ok."

Sam nodded and shifted his weight to his other foot. "Can I-"

Dean hugged him, and leaned his own weight against the giant mass that was his baby brother as Sam collapsed into him. Regardless of their differing feelings about John Winchester, talking about their father always left them both feeling raw. Dean hoped John would move on soon, but thing were rarely so simple where their Dad was involved.


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i was gonna give dean an android phone but it turns out that android messaging is rly fucking hard to do compared to ios so uhhhh everyone has imessage now

**From:** The Queen (Charlie)

**Today** 11:12 PM

****

****

**Charlie:** Castiel Novak, room 205  
**Dean:** Thanks.  


**Charlie:** also! don't forget,(Crossed Swords emoji)(Shield emoji), this weekend at noon, usual place  


**Dean:** I won't forget, see you there  
  


**Charlie:** can't wait to kick your ass <3  


**Dean:** (Face With Rolling Eyes )  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> sorry if u thought u were gonna get another full size chapter update  
> please know tht if i ever put out two actual chapters within 24 hours of eachother, it means im having some kinda breakdown


End file.
